


"Wandering Is A Terrible Sin"

by Eldrozul, Fortress_H, Ironmonger123, KyokaJiroChan, UndeadSoldierShady



Series: IzuJirou Series [33]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Blood and Gore, Edgeshot is a good friend, F/M, Jirou Kyouka Needs a Hug, Jirou Kyouka is a sidekick, Jirou Kyouka needs sleep, Lucid Dreaming, Lucid Nightmares, Major Character Injury, Major Collab, Nightmare Fuel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29962404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldrozul/pseuds/Eldrozul, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fortress_H/pseuds/Fortress_H, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironmonger123/pseuds/Ironmonger123, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyokaJiroChan/pseuds/KyokaJiroChan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/UndeadSoldierShady/pseuds/UndeadSoldierShady
Summary: "Wanderer's wandering,roaming aroundlooking and searchingfor what can't be found.Rootless and fruitless,wanderers they arefaithless and godlessin their travels afar.Roving and drifting,wanderers they besmug and ungratefulfrom righteousness flee.Nomadic problematic,wanderers go offleaving and partingas God they scoff.Wanderer's wandering,God wants you homeHe wants your stepsto no longer roam.Return returners,Oh, thou to Mecome back and revisitMy love for thee.Arrive and survive,Oh, thou My roving roverI will forgive your hearta thousand times overIf my people, which are called by my name,shall humble themselves, and pray,and seek my face, and turn from theirwicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,and will forgive their sin, and willheal their land."This is a collab made by a squad of angst lords called (The Hollows)
Relationships: Ink demon & Kyouka Jirou, Jirou Kyouka/Midoriya Izuku, Kamihara Shinya|Edgeshot & Jirou Kyouka
Series: IzuJirou Series [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803736
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. "Phenomenon"

Kyoka Jiro is a purple haired teen in her second year of the most popular hero school in japan, U.A high. She had just arrived in Tokyo being called to do work at an agency of Edgeshot: The Ninja Hero, for a week for an investigation on a peculiar subject.

She lived in a super human society where 80 percent of the population was born with an uncanny power called a "quirk" the other 20 percent are classified as "quirkless". In Kyoka's case, she has a quirk. Its called "Earphone Jack" same as her hero name.

Her earlobes are the jacks of earphones that give her enhanced hearing by a large amount. She can also extend her jacks to about six meters in length and she can direct her heart beat through them to cause them to vibrate, if plugged into a speaker, it can unleash a sound wave that varies in power and size depending on her heart rate.

_Ring Ring_

Her phone began to ring and she took it out of her pocket. She put it up to her ear as she began walking to the agency. "Hello?" She said to the person on the other end of the phone.

 _"Earphone jack, have you arrived at Tokyo?"_ The voice at the other end said.

"Yea, just got here. I will be at your agency in a few, 'k?"

 _"Ok"_ She hung up the phone and put it in her pocket and walked towards the agency cautiously while keeping glances at the floor.

There has been a rumor or a myth saying that people have disappeared after they stepped in a black puddle in Tokyo. Kyoka never knew if it was true at all, didn't keep her from not being cautious though. Rather not disappear for an odd reason.

Kyoka arrived at the agency and walked up to the elevator and pressed on the final floor which was where the pent house was located, this was also the agency room Kyoka works at and will be for the next week, maybe more...

The elevator dinged and opened the doors. Kyoka walked through the door and used a key Edgeshot gave her to open the door to the pent house.

"Yo! I'm here." She called out after closing the door and locking it behind her to no avail and she sighed. "I know you will be standing right in front of me after jumping down from the ceiling within two seconds from now."

And just as Kyoka said. A man wearing a red scarf and baring white hair came from the ceiling and landed on the floor. Kyoka sighed, knowing this wasn't the first time he had done something like this. "Let me guess, _Ninja_?"

Edgeshot gave her a glare. "Respect..."

"Right, sorry. So, why'd you call me here for a little more than a week?" Kyoka questioned, beginning to get settled in to the place she will be staying for more than a week.

"Come to my office and we will discuss it, but first get to your room and start unpacking your belongings, I will be waiting." He then proceeded to moon walk towards his office, which he had a tendency to do. He had already taught Kyoka how to moon walk and she had done it to live on the joke back at the dorms of U.A high, practically teasing everyone because it will be something they will never know.

Kyoka had already picked out a room to call her own before, permanently. When she would work at Edgeshot's agency, she would usually be involved in missions that require a lot of investigating and spying. She had interned with him during her first year of U.A and interned with him again during her second year. That was when he sent her an agency offer, which of course she accepted with no hesitation.

It was already pretty late at night. Around 9pm, it was a 4 hour train drive from Musutafu to Tokyo and she was sent to go after school, so she still had to go to the dorms to pack her things, then go to Tokyo.

Not that Kyoka was ever a morning person, she was more of a night owl. This started two years back when she started having trouble falling asleep. Usually, she would go outside for a late night walk for around an hour then come back and have a good nights rest for the next day.

Kyoka entered her room and it resembled her room a bit. The walls were originally purple and still are. Her bed sheet and blanket were checkered in red and black though. There was a night stand, a closet and a Easel with canvases.

Believe it or not, Kyoka was a decent artist, she can paint, draw and whatnot. And thankfully, she brought her art kit with the rest of her luggage. So, if there was ever a break timer anytime at all, it's to the art board.

Kyoka unpacked her clothes and seat her hero costume suitcase beside her bed and stretched before going to Edgeshot's office. Once she had entered, Edgeshot already had taken a seat on the side of the desk opposite to her.

Kyoka took a seat across from him and listened in to what he had to say. "You are aware of the "black puddle" rumor and/or myth, right?" Kyoka gave a nod in response.

"Yea... but that's just a rumor or a myth, right? It's not real."

Edgeshot sighed before continuing. "Well people are disappearing." Kyoka's went a bit wide eye at this. "It's concerning and I want to find out what happened to those people that disappeared and to put whoever is causing them to disappear in Tartarus. Our most promising lead, is the "black puddle" rumor."

Kyoka stayed silent for a bit, trying to take in everything he told her. At first she thought this myth and/or rumor was just, that. She had no idea people were actually disappearing. "Y Alright, when do we start and where?" She questioned.

"We start tomorrow, we will start to ask a few questions from people who said they've had family members disappear. Then we investigate the subject. Remember, someone with a quirk to make someone disappear or have some sort of pocket dimension is not some low level thug, especially if they know how to use their quirk directly." Ordered he, receiving a nod from Kyoka as she began to get up.

"One more thing..." Kyoka stopped and looked up at him as she raised a brow. "The room across from you is an empty office, use it at your will." Kyoka went wide eye at this. She wasn't expecting Edgeshot and to give her a workspace to call her own! Not that she didn't want it.

"Wh-what? Really, you're giving me my own workspace here?"

"Yes, it's yours for this investigation and others to come. I believe you are responsible and trust worthy enough to own one." He threw the key to the office room that was now going to belong to Kyoka for the duration that she stays at Edgeshot's agency.

Now she can finally do that moon walk into the office thing now!

Kyoka caught the key and smiled. "Thanks, see ya tomorrow." Kyoka left the room and closed the door behind her. Before Kyoka went to her room, she unlocked the door to her office.

Kyoka took a deep breath before opening the door to the office she was given. She turned on the lights and it looked like a normal office. Two nightstands with six drawers for each, mostly for paper work. A desk with two computers on it and a printer set next to the desk.

She walked up to the desk and graced her hand along it, taking some dust off. This was going to need get cleaned a bit, but hey, it was in a better state than she hoped for.

She gave a small smile before turning of the lights and exiting the room, closing the door behind her.

* * *

Kyoka had already showered and changed into sleep clothes. She was now laying in bed to prepare for the next day ahead of her. It was already 12am at night and Kyoka went to bed at 11pm. Yet, she hasn't slept a wink. 'Fuck it, I'll just go patrol for awhile.' Kyoka thought to herself, getting out of bed.

Edgeshot had been aware of Kyoka having trouble sleeping sometimes and allows her to take patrols for awhile if she can't sleep, as long as she doesn't do anything stupid and Kyoka wasn't one to do anything stupid. She takes her hero work serious and plans to keep taking it serious.

Kyoka changed out of her sleep clothes and into her hero costume and went outside. She began to wonder if the disappearing of people was caused by someone who wants to make the myth a reality. She wouldn't know herself because she had never stepped in a black puddle before, and never will.

Kyoka walked outside of the agency and began her midnight patrol, to make sure no evil doers are around and to allow her to sleep better later.

Usually she would see some late night walkers, if she was lucky or unlucky, she would find a thug or two and turn them in. This night wasn't any different. She saw a few late night walkers pass by her, greeting her and she greeted back.

It had been around an hour now and she hasn't seen anything, no thugs, no puddles, nothing.

'Alright, think it's time for me to get ba- Huuu-?!" She choked on her own breath as she suddenly felt as if her body was _double_ its normal weight and a loud heart beat sound suddenly appeared. She began to see black puddles all over the place, not moving a muscle so she didn't step on one. As this was happening, she tried to calm herself by taking slow, deep breaths.

Her quirk, enhancing her hearing, allowed her to pick up some sounds she cursed her quirk for. She heard a gurgly breathing and soaking wet foot steps one after the other.

Soon, she felt normal again and the puddles just, went away. The heart beat sound stopped and she could no longer hear the wet footsteps and gurgled breathing. "What in the fuck was that?" She said to herself.

She took a deep breath before shaking it off and walking back to the agency, she will just write about in a document tomorrow before leaving to question people. She noticed another night walkers and waved.

They gave a smile, about to wave but then a black hand came out the ground and grabbed them by the left leg. A black puddle started to form under them as multiple black arms came out of the puddle. Kyoka was now sprinting to them as arms wrapped around every part of the person's body and pulling them into the puddle. Kyoka reached out to grab them and pull them out as a final hand was placed on their face, muffling their screams.

Kyoka finally stretched her arm out to grab them, but all she grabbed, was air. Her eyes were wide at what had just occurred and her breathing was heavy and shaky, showing some distress. She just saw a puddle eat someone.

Kyoka then noticed something inscribed in the ground with the same substance as the black puddle she looked at it and it read out something that made her heart sink into her intestine and feel the need to throw up.

What was written was.....

_"Wandering is a terrible sin."_


	2. "A Dark Place"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hollow Gang be going crazy man..... Fuck being pure!

Kyoka had her hand held over her mouth as she tried to keep herself from throwing up. She had wished she was faster, fast enough to save them from whatever eldritch creature that just ate them. She wasn’t expecting the investigation to be like this.

Kyoka was slowly regaining her composure as she nervously took out her phone and clicked on Edgeshot’s contact and began calling him, putting her phone up near her ear instead of plugging her jack in.

“Earphone Jack?..... It’s twelve thirty in the mor-.”

“I just saw a fucking puddle eat someone infront of me!” As soon as she semi yelled that out, there was a moment of silence. She could then hear him shuffle off of his bed and him hanging up the phone. 

It was probably wrong to yell something like that at twelve thirty in the morning, in the middle of a city, but she didn’t care. Someone just died in front of her! How could she not yell?

At least she now knows how the people are disappearing, so that's a start, but what happened to the people that got taken that way was still unknown to her and Kyoka didn’t want to believe that they were actually dead and gone forever. She wants to believe that they are still in her arm’s reach. She wants to save them.

Kyoka stayed in that area until Edgeshot arrived with misheaved hair and his hero costume was a bit the same as well, obviously looking like her rushed here as fast as he could.

“What happened? Did you actually… see someone get taken?” He questioned his most worthy sidekick and she nodded. The look on her face confirmed she knew what she saw and it wasn’t some kind of sick joke. Kyoka wasn’t one to make a joke like that anyways.

“Yeah…. they were. In front of me. I-I couldn’t save them…” Kyoka stuttered a bit in her last question as she was still shaken by what had just happened. 

Edgeshot rubbed his eyes in frustration from this whole mess. Why didn’t he send her with backup when she goes out at night, he had no clue. She may be in her second year, but Kyoka is still a ‘student’. Then again, none of his other sidekicks sleep in his agency like Kyoka does. What’s done is done and he’d need to make up for it later. Let’s hope the situation doesn’t end up worse.

“Do you think whoever took them is still around?” He asked offering her a hand so she could stand up. She took his hand and stood up on her two feet.

“I don’t know, it's a possibility though…” 

“Then we can do a small patrol for a while. As we do so, can you tell me exactly what you saw?” 

Kyoka nodded before she responded and they began to walk. “Sure…Well… to start, before I even saw the puddle take someone. I felt a very heavy pressure over me and a loud heart beat was ringing in my ear and thanks to my quirk, I heard some disturbing gurgled breathing and wet footsteps. I was hallucinating, seeing the black puddles all over the place. It was only for a moment though… they all eventually just. Went away.” The purplette explained her experience before the disappearance of a person in front of her to Edgeshot.

The albino haired hero was speechless, completely speechless. Kyoka had gained evidence of the disappearances of people in Tokyo and signs before they happened, yet she still lived to tell the tale. Hell, he wondered if they should even go question people the next day with the information they had, but the more info, the better the investigation will go.

“After that…. I saw someone walking about and a hand came out of the ground and grabbed them by the leg. A puddle began forming around them and more hands came out. I ran as fast I could, but in the end… all I grabbed in my hand was nothing but air.” Kyoka stopped, turning her head to Edgeshot, who was wide-eyed.

With what Kyoka just explained, he began to wonder. Are they even dealing with a human? Like at all? Because from the sound of it, it sounds like someone with multiple quirks, and if it was a quirk it sounds way too complicated to even make sense at all. Some sort of monster?

“Excuse my use of language but…. Holy fuck…”

“Yea… The whole situation still has me a bit shaken from the shock of it. I was surprised about how it even went down…”

Edgeshot wasn’t going to lie, at this point, it probably would be best to just send her home and have himself deal with the investigation. But looking back on it, he knew Kyoka wasn’t going to let that happen. Plus, she is a determined, strong woman. Scary even.

They walked around for about an hour and it was now almost 2 in the morning and they still haven’t found anything, nothing at all. None of the heavy pressures, no eldritch man eating puddles, nothing….

Edgeshot said it would probably be a good time to head back due to them not finding anything. Kyoka agreed as she felt herself getting a bit sleepy.

When they got back to the agency, Kyoka went into her room and changed out of her hero costume and put on her sleeping clothes. She jumped in bed and just like any other night after she jumped in a bed after a walk, she fell asleep.

* * *

  
  


Kyoka woke up suddenly, feeling a bit thirsty. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Kyoka checked the time on the clock she set on the nightstand and raised a brow. “The hell? I woke up… at three in the morning?” She said to herself, getting out of bed to get some water.

She walked to the kitchen and grabbed a cup, beginning to serve herself a cup of water. She filled the cup and began to drink it, as she did this, the Tv in the living room turned on and a cartoony figure was doing a standing still dance.

Kyoka spat her water out. “The fuck!? Aw just fucking great. Now I have to clean this up later.” Kyoka said with a groan.

Kyoka poured herself more water and she walked to the tv and pressed the turn off button. It didn’t turn off. “The fuck?” She pressed it multiple times only for the tv not to turn off. “ You know what?” She unplugged the tv from the wall and dropped the cable, she looked up at the tv and her eyes went a bit wide.

It was still on, the cartoon character still doing it’s little dance on the screen. “Wh-What the fuck? A-Am I…. Im…. dreaming.” She said to herself, now realizing that she is actually dreaming, that nothing of what she is seeing is happening in the real world.

She stood up, facing the tv. She turned around and walked to the kitchen to pour herself another glass of water and sat at the table. Just drinking her water as her dream played on, watching the little cartoon with a white bowtie dance it’s little dance.

After she drank her water, she got up and threw herself on the couch and closed her eyes. Trying her best to go back to sleep. She didn’t know what else to do, to help her leave the dream that is. She also has no idea why she is having this specific dream. Why was there a dancing cartoon on a tv screen that never turns off?

She had no clue, she just hoped that falling asleep in the dream she just witnessed would cause her to actually fall asleep in the real world. As she was doing this, she tried closing out the questions she had in her mind. She stopped when two questions came up in her mind “What does “Wandering is a terrible sin” mean?” and “Who is that cartoon?”

She tried her best to ignore those questions as she could just ask them when she wakes up. She pushed them away and not long after, she fell asleep in the dream, with the tv still having the cartoon doing it’s dance.

* * *

  
  


Kyoka woke up on her bed, she realized immediately that she was on her bed, not on the couch she fell asleep on in the dream. “So.. that really was a dream. Holy fuck that felt so real....” Kyoka spoke to herself, holding her head with her left hand. 

Edgeshot came to check up on his sidekick as Kyoka was recalling the events from last night, remembering that she failed to save someone.

"Earphone Jack, we will get to the bottom of this, I assure you. Their deaths will be avenged. Well… Avenged by throwing whomever is causing all of this behind bars in tartarus" Edgeshot reassures her that it isn't her fault and will not let that guilt doubt her capabilities as a hero. 

"Thanks, Edgeshot. So any leads on what we could look for? Survey the area for answers, an investigation?" Kyouka asked him, wanting to start this as soon as possible.

Edgeshot hands her a paper with some addresses “Go to any of those locations, these have been people who have been reported to have “witnessed” something. The more evidence we find, the faster we can catch whatever caused all of those disappearances. Now get out of bed, eat and let's get started, if you want you can write a report to me about what you have gathered or you can discuss it with me directly.” Edgeshot explained and after he said that last sentence, Kyoka got out of bed and stretched her arms wide, ready to get a move on the investigation. 

* * *

  
  


It had been around 3 or 4 hours, Kyoka was now in her hero costume, roaming around Tokyo. She already had gone to almost all the places she had on her paper. Edgeshot had his own paper, so they split up, covering more ground of the operation, and started asking questions himself. 

Kyoka had one more place to go before she was done. Apparently from what she heard, this person actually survived an attack from the rumor.

She wondered if she could actually get some information from this one, the other places she had been to were mostly people who were worried sick of family members who were taken by this myth and others were just people with just fake experiences not even anything close to what Kyoka experienced last night.

The memory of it still sent shivers down Kyoka’s spine.

She walked into a complex and walked up to a door. Kyoka knocked on the apartment door as something thumbing down and heard a bang behind the door, but she heard a panicky voice "My apo-apologies, I'll be there, one moment!" A young man in his near 30s opened the door with a lock chain, his dark brown eyes are the only thing visible to Kyoka. "Um, yes may I help you with something? Am I in trouble?" The man asked in a worried and confused manner

Kyoka began talking to the man behind the door "I'm a sidekick to Edgeshot, Earphone Jack. I'm here to talk about the reports and disappearances of random people, heard that you survived such an incident, may you share your experiences, re-counting of what happened?" 

"O-Oh, Yes! Um, right this way, can't be too careful with it" He said, closing the door as he unlocked it, but not before opening again with his foot sticking out, "Um, one question: do you have anything in-ink that br-brought with you? Can you please, dis-discard it, I don't want it to find me here! Throw it away!" The man pleads to the purplette in front of him, begging her to throw away any ink based objects with her, which disturbs her quite a bit. But if she wanted answers, she has to give in to the demands of the eye-witness. She quickly tossed her pen a couple of meters away, once that's done, the man handed her a mechanical pencil and opened the door to let her in.

The man had a stubble on his left arm, the bandages were hastily wrapped around and some blood soaked on the edges, indicating that this is recent and he survived with some debilitating injuries. "My ap-apologies for my behavior, one can't be too careful with it, especially when talking about it, please come in" He let the purplette into his home, he walked sluggish and about to tipped his way to the couch, it must've startled him.

He slowly sat down on the couch, "So you want to know my story behind the incident?" He asked

"Yes, we needed to find any evidence behind the disappearance and any leads to it, do you know anything about it?" Kyoka asked, which the man nodded.

"Yes, you see, I had left arm once: it all started when I was going down at night, had both tattoos on them," 

His mind played back from the incident in detail, a vivid memory:

_ It was in the middle of the night, the man had both arms, his left arm had tattoos reaching down to his wrist while his right was only at the bicep. He was walking on the alleyway, when he heard something gurgling and a shriek in the air, calling for help. _

"I heard a woman crying for help, pro heroes weren't in the area, because of the whole rumor of random disappearances. So I ran to the s-source of the noise, there I saw her dr-drowning in some kind of... ink"

Kyoka was baffled that the source was ink "Are you sure about it?" She's unsure what she just heard.

"No mistake, I've been in several tattoo parlors to know that. But yes." 

_ Another memory played as he was trying to pull the woman out, using his left to grab and pull her out, the ink slowly pulled her into a puddle, a stronger force that pulled him in as well. _

"My quirk is inverted attraction: I pull myself towards the objects that I want to reach out to; Instead of things going towards me, I go to them... But even with that, it proved that it I couldn't do much to help her," 

_ Even using his quirk won't make a difference, reaching out to his right, a metal pole as he drew himself to it, he yelped in pain feeling like his arms were about to pop off of their sockets. _

"A cruel rendition of tug of war with me being the rope til I felt something creeping up to my arm" 

_ He suddenly saw the ink crept to his left arm, as the woman wasn't seen, she had sunken down to the blotch puddle. He felt being pulled in as well, he tried to pull himself out of there, stretching as far as he could, felt like his fingers were to dislodge out. Then he felt an overwhelming focus pull him away, crashing through the wall, his hand stuck to the pole. He was disoriented as he glanced down in fear and horror. _

"The next thing I know? My left arm disappeared, like literally been eaten, blood and everything and yet I didn't feel like in pain or force that bit it off!"

Kyoka was disturbed by the re-telling of a man who survived such an incident. "Why did it take your arm instead of your whole body?" She wondered why his arm was taken instead.

"No idea, but saw a streak of ink, crawling towards my right now, I assumed that it wanted my tattoos" The man deduced with his claim of evidence

"Tattoos?" Kyoka asked again. 

"It took my left clean off, so I had the idea it wanted ink related since it didn't claim my body unlike the woman" He implied that whatever it wants, it wanted something. 

"But most of the victims didn't have tattoos on them, according to the autopsy reports, most of them were clean with exceptions with signs of mutation quirks," She said, listing all the disappearances. "but they have a pattern: they wandered off somewhere, but what happens after that?" Kyoka wanted to continue the story. 

"I ran, never came back and even then... I never looked twice, since the incident I had the other tattoo of my arm removed and discarded most of the ink in my room, I wasn't sure who to trust at this point, but please use this information to get a lead on and stop whatever caused all of this" The man said, rubbing the stubble of was once his arm. 

"We can assure you, we will" 

"Thank you" 

Kyoka stood up and walked towards the door of the house. “Take care, okay? I promise we will stop this.” Kyoka affirmed what she assured a minute ago.

The man stood up, leaning against the door frame. “I trust that you will, but remember. What you are dealing with…. May not be human.”

Kyoka nodded and exited the building. She walked out the complex and began walking to the agency with a thought in mind. She had been through an experience as well, though her experience compared to the man’s experience was completely different. 

She didn’t hear him mention the heavy pressure she felt when she was on patrol last night and She didn’t hear him talk about any dreams he had. 

Kyoka felt as if her “dream” last night had relevance to the investigation. It was her only explanation. She had never feared any childish monsters or zombies, ghosts even. She never believed them, on top of this she had never watched a horror movie before so she wouldn’t know what to be scared of. 

So the TV not turning off was just something that creeped her out a bit. But it was what was on the screen, she had no relevance to it at all. Meaning she has had relevance with it and not even realized it. The cartoon is related to this “ink monster” in a way. It was just a hunch, nothing to really go on, but she has a feeling that she is right.


	3. "Ticking Clock"

Edgeshot, Earphone Jack, and Pyre Star - one of the other sidekicks who wanted to assist the situation and decided to help out. The three went to their separate objectives, to cover more ground with the investigation underway. Unfortunately, Edgeshot and Pyre Star had most of their investigation done, cold turkey, most of their time spent with little to no concrete answer.

"Pyre Star, report?" Edgeshot called him through his comms

"It went cold, Sir. Most of the eyewitnesses didn't add much to the evidence, some weren't accurate nor support the situation entirely. Some were also just made-up theories, some not even close to what Earphone Jack explained to you yesterday.” Pyre Star replied through the mic.

"So a false lead?" Edgeshot responds

"Pretty much, Sir. Your end?"

“Ditto.” Edgeshot could only do but sigh in frustration. False information can lead to several paths, paths that they didn’t want to take in the future. One misstep or one wrong move, and someone else can die. Edgeshot is not off the line for that either, he could also die.

"Unfortunately, they never encounter whatever we're looking for, their concerns for their missing family members or too busy grieving to assist in our investigation,” Edgeshot explained, taking a brief pause before turning the comms to Kyoka’s end as well. “Alright, Earphone Jack, Prye Star, let's go back to the agency and discuss what we have.”

"Sir, I think I got a lead on our situation here,” Kyoka spoke out of nowhere from the comms.

This gave Edgeshot some relief that this wasn’t a complete waste of time, but also some concern about Kyoka. How is she getting this involved with leads? At first, it's a mere coincidence that she had an encounter and no concrete evidence? Something isn't right for some reason.

“Good work, Earphone Jack, come back to the agency and we will discuss what you found,” Edgeshot said, turning off his comms just after he heard them turn off theirs.

Kyoka and Pyre Star come back to the agency for a debriefing of their latest discovery after Kyoka told them what the man told her, Edgeshot standing next to a projector as he shows some pictures and traces them through a red marker.

"Okay, based on what Earphone Jack learned; we have two patterns that lead to the random disappearance. For one, the survivor of the incident shows that it had an interest with something ink related to them, people who wander around leads them to be easily taken and left without a trace except the puddle of ink, which soon also disappears into the ground." Edgeshot explained the gathered intel they've got, thinking of a plan to lure the attention without endangering each other.

“Sir.” Prye Star called out.

“Yes?”

“You referred to what we are dealing with as “it”. Are you implying that what we are dealing with isn’t human?”

"Unfortunately, yes. The survivor of the ordeal claims that this _might_ be the case. As it tore his left arm clean off, no force or weapons used to do the job, it just happened without warning. We have no other option to use lethal force when dealing with it as much it compromises our lives, but it's our duty as heroes to protect others from things they can't fight." Edgeshot explained what stakes they got themselves into, dealing with something beyond normal.

“Sir, if what we are dealing with isn’t human, can it really think like one?” Prye Star asked another question. Which did make Kyoka and Edgeshot think.

“I….I would suppose not.” Kyoka randomly called out. “It was attracted to the people themselves and took them and from what I experienced and what the survivor experienced, it uses the same method, over and over. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I think the creature is the puddle itself, not a quirk of another creature. I don’t think it can think like us…” Kyoka explained receiving a nod from Edgeshot.

“That sounds valid, but what about the pressure you experienced?” The pro hero responded to her explanation with a question that made Kyoka think.

“I honestly…don't know, it has a relation somehow, but I just… don’t know.” Kyouka clutched her right arm nervously. The memory of that pressure still gives a chill up her spine. For a moment, it went quiet for a bit.

“So…” Pyre Star started. “What do we do?”

“Well, we know that it doesn’t think like us. Maybe we can trick it. Ink is flammable. Pyre Star, with your quirk, we can easily get rid of this “thing”.” Kyoka replied to him. Edgeshot couldn’t help but smile under his scarf, Kyoka was a smart girl and knew how to quickly put pieces together.

“Alright, that settles it. Tonight, we stop this thing and end this investigation. Earphone Jack, Prye Star. You two will patrol together, I will go alone and notify you if I find it.”

“Yes, Sir!” The two sidekicks shouted in unison.

* * *

Kyoka and Prye Star were walking around in search of the puddle. Prye Star's quirk allows him to make ninja stars that are on fire. He can increase and decrease the temperature of them to 2500 degrees at its highest.

He was one of Edgeshot’s more reliable sidekicks, although still being under Kyoka, he has shown great strength, though he is not the brightest bulb in the shed, still way brighter than most of the kids in Kyoka’s class.

Kyoka heard from Edgeshot that at one point, he was juggling his stars, while holding a conversation on the phone, and stopped a robbery. He was just that talented with his quirk, yet…. He didn’t know that ink was flammable.

They have been walking around Tokyo for almost two hours now. And haven’t found anything.

“Earphone Jack, If you work at a Samsung store as security. Are you a guardian of the galaxy?”

“Prye Star! I swear to god! Another stupid qu-!”

“Are oranges called oranges because oranges are the color orange or is the color orange called orange because orange is the same color as the fruit orange?”

“Di-....Did you just use orange eight times in a sentence…. And still make sense?” Kyoka asked the sidekick beside her.

“Indeed.”

“Why do you do this to me?”

The red hair sidekick shrugged. “Gotta keep the humor somehow.”

Kyoka growled at him with an annoyed look written on her face. “That is anything but humorous. More like an-Huuu?!” Kyoka choked on her voice again and Prye Star did the same as they felt the pressure overwhelming them. The same pressure Kyoka felt just before her first encounter.

“Holy… shit.” Kyoka tried to push over the pressure as Prye Star did the same. Kyoka could hear the wet footsteps come to an end and all she could hear was a loud heartbeat and gurgled breathing.

“Can you hear that heartbeat?” Prye Star asked and Kyoka gave a nod. “Can you hear anything?”

“Yea…. I can hear some gurgly breathing over there.” Kyoka pointed down an alleyway.

“Come on let's go!” The Fire star user yelled as he ran down the alleyway.

“Wait, Prye Sta- nevermind….” Kyoka said to herself, beginning to go after the other sidekick now. She hadn’t been able to understand what it means to be under this presence and it would be a good thing to find out, it can lead to more leads.

What if there was more than one puddle? That could be a problem….

They soon stopped running as they began hearing a humming of a little girl, a chill running down both their spines, colder for Kyoka in particular. She didn’t know why, but that humming really freaked her out.

“Huh, weird. Sounds kinda like a ki-.” Kyoka grabbed him and moved to the side, using her quirk to try and pinpoint the origin of the sound.

“Sshhh.” Kyoka hushed him as she did this. The humming didn’t come from a single place, it sounded like it was next to her ear. The wet footsteps were being heard again and they disappeared after a few steps.

Actually… everything disappeared. The humming, the pressure was lifted off their shoulders, the Ink puddles were gone and the heartbeat was gone as well as the gurgled breathing.

“That was… so weird. First the humming…. It sounded like it was right beside us, but there was no one here beside us… and I heard the footsteps, but they disappeared after a few steps.” She explained the odd pattern of sounds she picked up, retracting her jacks back to up to shoulder height.

Prye Star shrugged and began to walk out the alleyway and Kyoka was about to follow, but a hand from the other sidekick reached out in front of her, stopping her from going further. “Prye Star?” Kyoka called out and the sidekick motioned his head to the ground and Kyoka looked to see a small, black puddle.

“Put it out, right?” He asked as a fire star appeared in his hand.

“Yea.”

Before Prye Star could even throw the star, the puddle began to enlarge itself. The two teens backed up so as to not get sucked in. They were a bit surprised that it reacted this way, maybe because it was waiting for them to step on it and reacted to the lack of sense?

The red-haired man threw the ninja star, setting the ink on fire, but it didn’t react as they thought it would. Instead of being burned away, the ink remained, leaving it a flaming black puddle.

“Earphone Jaaacck…”

“Yea! I know!”

Kyoka jabbed her jacks into her gloves to unleash a soundwave from the ground. However, the puddle shot a sharp stream forward, causing Kyoka to flinch a bit. Hands began to reach out of the puddle and they were also becoming a flame.

The hands began to reach their way to Kyoka slowly, but for some reason, she couldn’t move. She was hearing whispers from the hands, the whispers fixated her to the point where she couldn’t think straight.

Slowly, inch by inch, they moved closer and closer. And just when she thought they’d grab her too, Prye Star quickly pulled her back by the collar of her jacket.

“Now’s not the time to get lost in thought!” He yelled out at her and she snapped out of it.

“Yea, sorry…” Kyoka apologized as the puddle seemed to have extinguished the flames burning over it somehow.

Pyre reaches to his comms to report Edgeshot "Sir, we have visual and direct contact with the puddle, need assita-ack!" Pyre dropped his communicator, panicked by a sudden confrontation. 

Before Pyre could say anything, something grasped his neck, he slowly turned in terror as one of the inky hands grabbed him by the neck, suffocating him, they didn't notice that it had reached out that far, however only he was caught, leaving Kyoka stunned, that it doesn't like him around her. "No… NO! Don't take him… Please... Stop." She could only do but plead, fearing that she'll endanger anyone by being there.

"Get your creepy hands off of me! Take this!" Pyre yelled, he tries to get out by throwing a fire star at the puddle, he instead makes it worse as the puddle ignites along with the hands, they grab hold of him, smearing him with the ink as the trail of fire reaches the sidekick, engulfing him like his hero name, a pyre.

"Ahhhh!!!! Jack, Help me!!!" He screamed for help as he tried to douse himself from the flames, preoccupied to walk away from the puddle, dragging his slowly charred body. All Kyoka does is stare at the sheer horror that she bears to witness, tears well up in her eyes with a quivering lip, biting her lip as she's powerless to do anything to help.

Kyoka was too distracted, unaware of her surroundings, even as Edgeshot's voice called through Pyre Star's comms, a clear distraught tone came out of "Pyre Star, do you need assistance? Pyre Star! Do you copy?!" All he could hear at his end were his screams and a kindling of fire, and a small sob from Kyoka.

As Pyre Star keeps screaming and begging for help, as his body is consumed by the puddle, leaving the agonizing echoed screams in the cold darkness of night… As the flame dies down along with the puddle, it fades out of the ground leaving Kyoka alone to cry out of anguish, wailing the pain of losing someone she considered as a friend, too powerless to make any difference, while she stood there. There isn't a body to weep at, it just took everything completely. Clutching the only thing that was dropped, his comms. She didn't do her duty as a hero, She cries like a distraught child.

Edgeshot walked silently, hearing her break down from failing to save someone once more, letting her guilt consume her subconscious. The death of one of his sidekicks has taken a toll on both of them. He detached his cloak and wrapped it around her body, not saying a word, just a pat on a shoulder as Kyoka firmly grasped the cloak and buried her face against Edgeshot's chest, crying her eyes out.

"I couldn't do anything! I just stood there… leaving him alone to die… burning and drowning, I can't do anything! I don't know why I'm left alive… " Kyoka screamed as she's in broken distress, she couldn't even look him in the eye and say it straight, it's heartbreaking.

His suspicion confirms that whatever it is, it has a keen eye on her and will take anyone away if she's nearby, now he's faced with an ultimatum: He can't send her back home or UA as it might lead to multiple disappearances, specifically at U.A, severely damaging Kyoka’s mind and her growing survivor guilt further and having more people, including people she considered as friends and loved ones to die.

But there are a couple holes, if it wanted her, why did it leave her and take Prye Star? And even then I had another chance before to take her during her first encounter, why didn’t it take her then? If this thing really doesn’t have a mind, why didn’t it do those two options?

"Let's take a break from this operation, and recollect ourselves, okay?" A gentle tone from Edgeshot, whispering to her ear with a pat on the shoulder, which Kyoka responded with a silent nod.

* * *

After having taken a shower full of regret and guilt-inducing thoughts, Kyoka changed into her sleep clothes and tried her best to sleep. Her guilt outweighed her will to even fall asleep as tears filled her eyes again. She began to sob herself to sleep, covering her eyes with her left arm.

Soon she fell asleep and her arm fell off to the side, revealing her tear filled cheeks and small eye bags. She flipped her body on her side while she was sleeping.

She soon woke up and checked the time, it was three in the morning again. She knew she was dreaming and wanted to just go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. She slowly slid out of bed and went to pour herself some water. She heard the tv go static and turn on.

After she served herself water, she turned around to reveal the same character, not dancing. “What even are you?” Kyoka asked herself, but what she didn’t expect was for the screen to go static and come back with the same character taking a walk with a smile on its face. The character art was unfamiliar to her, it was probably wayyyyy before quirk were even a thing.

The screen went back to the character standing still. “Did you just…. Respond to me?”

The screen went static again and showed the character give multiple quick nods then going back. “Why are you here?” She asked, sitting down and setting her water aside. She wrapped her arms around her legs as the screen changed again.

It showed the character thinking with its chin between its thumb and index finger. It shrugged, shaking its head and the screen went back. “What's your name?” The screen didn’t change.

Kyoka sighed and reached to turn off the tv, but the screen immediately flashed, showing the character’s face covering the whole screen with a threatening, serious face with no smile.

She jerked her hand back and rubbed it with her other. “O-Okay, I-Im sorry.... I won’t turn it off.”

The screen went back to normal and Kyoka just sat there speechless. Just staring into the abyss of the screen. It wasn’t long before Kyoka passed out, sitting there on the living room floor in front of the TV.

She woke up again in her bed and it was morning, feeling the dry tears on her cheeks and the small bags under her eyes were a small amount larger. She probably cried in her sleep after her dream.

Edgeshot said that the operation will be at a pause, so she had time to get her mind off of things and try to lift the guilt off her shoulders a little.

She didn’t really know if she wanted to take a break from the investigation. It would feel like she is laying back on the people who lost their lives, she wants to be useful. She wants to save people and bring smiles on their faces, that's why she wants to be a hero. How can she do that if they’re dead?! It doesn’t help that one of the people who died was a sidekick of Edgeshot and someone Kyoka called a friend.

Kyoka took a deep, shaky breath as she sat up and sat off the side of the bed. She went to brush her teeth and immediately went to her office, and just sat there. She eventually took out a paper and a pencil and began to doodle as an attempt to keep her mind off of things.

Her tears fell onto the paper, wetting the small doodle she made of her friend.

“I’m sorry.” She slowly dozed off, her head laying down, using her arms as a cushion, exhausted from all the crying and slept the morning away.


	4. "Monstrosity"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hollow gang is fucking shit up!

Edgeshot and Kyoka are doing the usual routine patrol at night, only this time he's paying close attention to her, after what happened last time with the investigation, the loss of Pyre Star, and the growing survivor's guilt on Kyoka. She deserves more of a break from it all. 

They were walking side by side, although Kyoka firmly latched onto Edgeshot's arm, and when he took a glance at her and couldn't help but feel terribly sorry for her: the bags of her eyelids were a tint of red from all the crying, and although he assumed she was silently sobbing, there were dark spots as well from not getting enough sleep. Down and all despondent was not helping her image either. 

Edgeshot considered himself a good person and a damn good hero, and automatically he felt that it was his duty as both to put this situation to a close, monitoring his surroundings whilst keeping Kyoka as close to him as possible. It was time to be vigilant, not knowing when that…  _ thing  _ will strike. 

They took a minute pause behind an alleyway, taking a moment to check up on Kyoka. "Earphone Jack? Are you holding up okay?" He asked, tilting down to look her in the eyes, see if she's still wide awake and his heart took a painful dip when he saw that her eyes still lacked their shine. The looming melancholy was all she was showing. 

"Yea…" Was Kyoka’s only response to Edgeshot's worry.

"It's going to be alright, for now," Edgeshot said gently. He needs to find a way to apprehend it, and Pyre Star's fire didn't do much, Perhaps emitter quirks wouldn't be effective? Whatever they threw at it, it just took advantage of their attack. 

Suddenly an intense pressure overwhelmed them from the back of the alleyway, Edgeshot slowly turned to whatever caused that, but that didn't do much as Kyoka knows that sensation  _ very  _ well. She knows what it is, and that shook her despondent state into a panicked and utterly terrified one as her grip on Edgeshot's arm tightened to crushing extents.

The humming of a little girl arose, signaling that whatever the puddle really was, is close by, very close by. It was like a chant, being sung to them, almost in their ear, but no girl can be seen near them.

"What was this?" Edgeshot quietly asked himself, his senses on full alarm from that ominous tension in the air and the creepy humming of a girl made the air feel even more ominous.

"I… know that feeling and sound… It's nearby…? I-It's here!" Kyoka whimpered, rightfully frightened now as she gripped his arm and trembled violently. 

But, they have finally seen what they're looking for, and it's beyond what they could've imagined.

_ And that was  _ **_not_ ** _ a good thing. _

A shambling figure, it doesn't appear human at all, but more like a demon, whatever it is, Edgeshot already knew that they needed to take it down  _ now _ . The ink creature began gurgling loudly, walking away from them slowly, and that was when it saw Edgeshot and Kyoka at the edge of the alleyway.

Edgeshot was about to attack it, but it turned into an ink puddle and vanished.

Now the pro was faced with an ultimatum: split up or stay with Kyoka. If he chooses the former, he can take on the creature, but knowing full well that Kyoka isn't in the best shape to fight nor handle it by herself. And if he chose the latter, then it lives another day, claiming another innocent. But Kyoka will be safe. 

In the end, his duty as a pro hero comes first.

"Earphone Jack, we have to split up! I'll track it down and you find whatever it’s after! And be careful, we don't know exactly why but it left you alone, but the sooner we can find what it's looking for, the better we can meet up and finish it!"

Kyoka gave a silent nod, still shaken and terrified from past experiences she has had. She took a shaky deep breath doing her best to calm herself when realizing how she was acting. She was being scared, and sure all heroes can be scared from time to time, but they can’t be consumed by fear. She has to push on, even if it means risking her life.

Edgeshot gave chase using the trail of ink as well as the unsettling noises that came from  _ whatever _ it was. He could not let it sight out of him, but his vision began to cave in, thus limiting his view as he tried to hunt it down. Turning at each and every corner, by the time he got there it had completely vanished, gone without a trace. Even the abhorred noise ceased to exist along with the humming of the child.

Edgeshot was left breathing heavily. His eyes widened with the conclusion that he wanted to be proven wrong about:  _ it can think!  _

The mere idea that it has any sort of smarts was scary, but the fact that it's intelligent enough to lure him away from Kyoka, making its presence known to them, forcing him to make a decision with the knowledge that it's after Kyoka, it all does much more than enough to paralyze him in fear… 

But he was forcibly snapped out of it by a familiar voice, wails of agony pierced through the night and the claustrophobic alley. 

"Earphone Jack?!" Edgeshot shouted, the panic and fright for Kyoka’s fate transparent in his tone.

Minutes before Edgeshot gave chase to the ink creature. Kyoka sprint the other way, hoping to get there in time for what it's after. Then she saw someone, backed to a corner by the ink puddle, without hesitation she reached out to them, pulling them out of the ink.

The puddle stopped for a brief period of time, giving Kyoka and the civilian time to catch their breath, not letting their eyes off of it, till its true form slowly rises out of the puddle, the way it lurched over, bones creaking and cracking in all the wrong ways, burbling and gurgling noises came out of its  _ mouth  _ or whatever it was.

It began to slowly walk or limp towards the supposed victim as the pressure exerted and the humming chime of a little girl commenced again. 

Kyoka realized that and aimed her speakers towards it, "Run! It's not safe here, I'll take it from here." She yelled at the civilian to get away, which they oblige anyway. She emits a thunderous soundwave at the creature, her heart was pounding in fear which was perfect ammunition to use against this  _ thing. _

But in the end, it did little to nothing as the only thing the soundwaves did to it was make the ink on its body ripple like water. But it did stop in its tracks, unfortunately, a random bystander came to see what's going on, and the ink creature sank back to the ground and sprouts out in front of the soon-to-be victim. 

Kyoka whipped her head behind, she saw another innocent person as she tried to warn them "Get back before-" Till it's too late as a spherical dome of ink trapped the victim. In a desperate attempt to shrug the ink off, she lets out a head-splitting noise at the barrier, only for it to shrink. Her mind began to scream  _ "No! No! No! NO! Come on, please!"  _ The soundwaves grew vicious but it did nothing as the dome became a small bubble, it trembled a bit before an auditable "pop", bursting into a splat of ink, which sunk into the ground. 

Kyoka's breathing became erratic, it's bad enough that she has to relive another encounter all over again, even though she does something to help, it wasn't enough, it was  _ never enough for her _ . 

She was powerless before when Pyre Star died and now it proves that she's actually too powerless to stop the creature, she couldn't stand anymore, letting her knees hit the ground as she let out an excruciating outcry, howling in despair, taking her frustration at the ground, hitting as hard as she possibly could. She doesn't care if her knuckles began to bruise and bleed as the knuckles on the gloves of her hero costume began to tear, the guilt is far worse than any pain or injury. Kyoka couldn't see it anyways as she's crying heavily. 

Edgeshot came up to her, she looked so defeated and miserable, no comforting words could reassure her, but he wanted to do something, all he does is kneeling beside her and hold her close, hugging her tightly, not letting her go, no matter how much she tries to pull away and let her wallow in her guilt, tormenting her. 

“I’m so fucking useless! I couldn’t do anything! I was too weak...” She didn’t even know how she became Edgeshot’s number 1 sidekick. She doesn’t deserve that role, too many people died around her to feel as if she really did accept it.

Edgeshot was at a loss for words, he didn’t know what to say, there were no words to comfort her. She wasn’t useless, she was his most reliable sidekick who always gave them the upper hand in an investigation, but no one is perfect in this world, especially when they were dealing with something this dangerous and intelligent.

The creature, no…. Demon, lead him away so it could catch an innocent with ease, knowing Kyoka couldn’t do anything to it. The question still remains on why it didn’t take her instead. Three instances, and it left her alone, there were instances where Kyoka would have easily been taken as well, yet it left her.

Kyoka was hugging Edgeshot back as she cried her eyes out. The pro rubbed her back to calm her.

After Kyoka had calmed a little bit, the two went back to the agency. Kyoka took a quick shower and went to her office, not feeling the will to want to sleep. She sat in her office, looking for ways to get rid of ink, she wanted to continue to attempt to fight back.

If her soundwaves didn’t do anything, maybe something else worked? She was determined to avenge the people who lost their lives because Kyoka was too weak to do anything.

She groaned, her eye bags felt heavy and they hurt, probably incredibly swollen from all the crying she had done recently. Maybe some sleep would be good after all. 

She felt stupid for not thinking of doing this before, there was so much they could do against ink. Alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, etc… the only question was… would those tools have any effect against ink that can devour someone within seconds, withstand thunderous soundwaves that can possibly break someone’s eardrums, and be able to summon eldritch hands out of a puddle?

Yea… She was pretty sure that stuff like vinegar would only tickle that thing…. No….. that Ink Demon… 

“This is pointless… I’m Just….gonna got to bed.” Kyoka stood up and turned off the computer. Her mind didn’t feel tired, but her eye bag weight said differently. Actually, the feeling of her body told her differently, she felt like her body was going to pass out leaving her awake. 

So, she tiredly made her way to her room in the agency and collapsed on the bed. She crawled under the blanket and laid her head on the pillow, basically forcing her eyes to close shut and let her sleep, her mind wanted her to stay awake, but her body said “no” and Kyoka was in the middle of this war between her body and her mind. 

Eventually, she fell asleep. Trying to get some rest in before looking into how she could combat the Ink Demon the next day. At least she’d be safe in her own dreams. Still, her thoughts did wonder before she fully sunk into her slumber to the dancing cartoon from her previous dream before it even faded from her mind.

  
  
  
  


Kyoka woke up and, to her surprise, she awoke in her office chair. She lifted her head from her desk and held it up, the doodle of Pyre Star was beside her head before she had lifted it up. “The hell…? Did I… accidentally fall asleep on the computers?” She questioned herself.

She would’ve sworn that she walked to her bed and had a whole war between her body and mind to fall asleep. Was that a dream or was she currently dreaming?

Her question was answered when she turned on the computers and they each had a silhouette of the cartoon character from her last dream. “Oh, I’m… just dreaming…” Muttered she.

“Hi again…” 

The screen slowly zoomed in as a response to Kyoka’s greeting. 

After a few seconds, it popped up the character with psychotic bloodshot eyes with black tears dripping from his eyes in an instant. This made Kyoka jump out of her seat and scream out of being jump scared. Her eyes grew even more fearful when she realized what he was holding. 

It was a sign dripping in a black liquid which she assumed was ink and it said….

“Wandering is a terrible sin.”

Kyoka’s breath became erratic, she remembers where that quote was said. It was after her first encounter when it was written in ink on the ground after she failed to save someone for the first time.

“I….I…” She was lost in words as one of the screens had a hand press out from inside of it. The hand slowly came out of the screen and it was an inky black hand, a hand that Kyoka will never forget, the hand of the Ink Demon.

“N..No. No!” She screamed out as she ran to the door of the room and twisted the knob to leave, it was locked from the outside. How? She didn’t know, but it didn’t stop her from yanking at the knob, violently trying to twist it as she heard the cracking and creaking of the bones as the Ink Demon came out the screen.

“Please open! Someone help! Edgeshot! Please!” She called out for help, hoping that he was in the dream. She begged and pleaded, now hearing the wet footsteps approach behind her. She turned around slowly and fearfully. And there it was, the Ink Demon was now close up and personal with her, staring her right in the eyes with the Ink covering most of its face, only showing the cartoony smile which was also slightly covered in the ink dripping from its head.

The smile reassembled the same smile like the cartoon in her dreams before, this proved that they were very close in relation to each other.

The Ink Demon then grabbed her by the mouth and lifted her off the ground. Kyoka whimpered and cried as she was lifted up. Her voice muffled by its inky hand covering her mouth. Tears were falling down her eyes as the grip on her mouth was strong, she felt a few cracks and Kyoka whimpered and cried in pain. 

Its grip was cracking her jaw, and it hurt, it hurt so much. 

Kyoka felt her mouth being forced open and ink flooded down her throat, she couldn’t breathe, She was drowning in ink while being held up by the demon. She struggled, still trying to breathe as she grabbed the arm that was lifting her up and wrapped her legs around it. 

The Ink Demon curiously tilted its head as it strengthened its grip, cracking Kyoka’s jaws further, she cried and winced in pain, as she felt her consciousness fading away as she could no longer feel oxygen circulate her lungs. Her grip on the arm loosened and they fell off it and Kyoka’s last sight was the Ink Demon’s smile…. 

Kyoka sprung out of bed, breathing heavily and dripping cold sweat. “H-Holy shit…. O-Oh my fucking god…” She winced out in fear. 

She looked to the clock beside her bed and it was three in the morning again. “Ok…” She took a deep breath. “Ok, it's just going to b-be the normal dream. I get water, I talk to the tv, normal… yea….”

Kyoka got out of bed and walked toward the kitchen. She served herself water like usual and took a sip, immediately she spat it out and stared into the cup. “The hell that tasted like…” Kyoka widened her eyes. “Ink….” she whimpered out.

She heard the Tv go static and a small pressure was exerted and the room went blue. The humming of a small girl was present again, chiming loudly in her ear this time. Her breathing showed that she was scared and she turned around to see the Ink demon crawling out the screen again.

She began to run to the exit of the agency, she felt as if there was half the gravity of the real world. She was incredibly slow. She reached the door and slowly turned around to see the Ink Demon limping toward her. She saw it phase forward by a couple of steps. The humming was getting way more intense, keeping the same chant routine.

Kyoka opened the door and ran through it, closing the door behind her. She ran to the elevator and frantically pressed the button, hearing the door that was down the hallway from her open. She turned and the Ink Demon was already on its way to her.

The door opened and she went inside, she frantically pressed the button to the first floor and just as frantically pressed the button to close the doors.

Just before it could enter with a phase dash, the doors closed and Kyoka gave a shaky sigh. She began to think as the blue in the elevator dissipated and the humming stopped, where would be the safest place to hide? This is a nightmare she can’t wake up from…. The demon can probably find her with a sixth sense or something. 

So she ran to the only source of constant movement that moved her from city to city, from prefecture to prefecture. The train.

She ran out of the building and it was pouring rain. Despite her being barefooted and in sleeping clothes, it didn’t bother her as much as the fear of constantly being hunted by what she feared most.

She ran towards the train station, slipping sometimes.

Once she got there the train was already there. “Hey! Wait for me please!” She screamed out and surprisingly, the driver of the train heard her, which was strange, but she didn’t care. She just hopped on the train and took a seat. She was barefooted and soaked in rainwater. 

When will this nightmare end?

One of the doors to the cart could be heard opening and everything turned blue again along with the humming being chanted again.

Kyoka turned her head to the open cart door and the Ink Demon was there. How? She didn’t know, she just ran. She ran as fast as she could the opposite way and the Ink Demon gave chase. 

She swung a cart door open and ran to the other cart, before opening the door, she turned to the lever which could detach the cart from the other. She pulled it as hard as she could and the Ink Demon grew closer and closer until.

**_Clank_ **

The lever was pulled and the carts detached, leaving the Ink Demon behind, twitching its head, 

Kyoka could only sigh as she stood back up after having fallen from pulling the lever. She was safe now, she was able to wait out this nightmare until she woke up.

Well….. That's what she thought….

Hands crept on her face from behind and the index fingers pushed into her eyes, the shock and pain made Kyoka screamed in pain. She couldn’t see and it hurt so much, everything was black. 

She cried in pain, falling onto the ground as she held her face. “Fuck! Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” She cried out. She felt the back of her head being grabbed and she did her best attempts to grab whatever held her head. 

An impact with the ground of the train was met with her face. Kyoka felt that shock of pain hit her face as she felt her nose break and skull crack. She cried in pain as the Ink demon then hit her face against the glass wall of the train, breaking the glass with her face. 

Shards covered her face and now she was only taking small slow breaths. She was then thrown off the train and-.

Kyoka woke up again, this time on her bed again. She checked the time and it was four in the morning. ‘Thank god…’ Her mind winced out as the only other thought in her mind was how happy she was…

To be out of that nightmare she thought was never going to end.


	5. "Repentance"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will lead to VERY explicit gore and violence, read at your own risk!

Kyoka was glad, it was four am and when she was dreaming it was 3 am. She thought that nightmare would never end. She thought she was going to have to wait until the morning in that dream. But, she is still feeling uneasy, as if she was still inside the dream, but it was four am… so this must be the aftermath, right?

She got up from the bed and walked up to the door. She slowly turns the knob on the door, hoping that it's unlocked, she sighs in relief from it, and walks out of the room… until she finds a dim hallway, The hallway went far and it was thin, there was only a little space between the wall and Kyoka’s arms, there was a path of flickering lights, but the door was nowhere in sight. the walls were wooden and between the cracks between them, they were dripping ink. The floors also had ink floors in the form of puddles.

Her breathing became heavy, chest-pounding as she tried to look back, only to find the door to her room, mysteriously vanished without a trace, alone in a long hallway. Kyoka took her first step on the inky floor, a cold shiver went through her spine, feeling the thick, tar-like substance at the soles of her bare feet as she tried to walk through the hallway, using the walls for support. She can do this, she has to be careful. 

Feeling the wall as it's made of wood, she plugged her jack onto the wall and quickly retracted from it, frightened and disturbed by what she just heard… voices, the distorted cries, and screams of agony behind those walls.

However, those disembodied voices, she knew them,  _ Oh God, she knew them very well _ . The victims she failed to save, the people she couldn't save.

And that included….. Prye Star’s voice......

Feeling this immense pressure as the voices grew louder, the sound of their weeping prayers for someone to save them, the screams as the ink took their lives… Kyoka began to cry out of guilt, is this what became of them? To be trapped forever? Never to be seen in the light of day? 

She couldn't make it up for them, she believed that this is her punishment for failure. Her failure to be a hero, someone who was supposed to save lives.

That was until the walls caved in, the walls didn't break as her hand began to sink through it, her wrist slowly turned into black as she panicked, trying to jerk her hand away, the voices began to whisper in different pitches  _ "Wandering is a Sin"  _

Suddenly black, inky hands sprout out of the wall, extremely close to Kyoka, as they grabbed onto her, at any part of her body, dragging her into the increasing dripping wall, one has a hold of her arm and snapped it out of the joints, another grabbed on the ankle and twist it - it looked like taffy candy.

Kyoka screamed in excruciating pain, it was unbearable. As the ink arms dislodged so many of the bones in her body, two arms appear in between of her head, one wrapped around her neck, choking her and the other around her forehead, covering her eyes, arched her head back, her body began to sink into the wall, leaving her mouth wide open as she shrieked, her tears were drenching in ink.

This is torment, till it dislocates her lower jaw by grabbing onto it, yanking it off of her mouth. She dies as her body sank completely into the wall. The last words that were heard were….

“Who’s laughing now?”

Kyoka woke up once more, this time in the office again. She tried to scream but quickly placed her hand on her mouth, finding that her jaw was attached to her face, breathing heavily, closing her eyes to recollect herself. That was the 3rd time a nightmare has happened inside a nightmare. She doesn't know how all of these dreams came to be, she never even recognized the hall nor the last words, “Who’s laughing now?”

It sounded like… Pyre Star. No, that couldn't be possible, could it? She had no idea...

She looked at the clock again with hands on her head. It was 4:30 in the morning. She gripped her hair and looked down at the desk to see her doodle of Pyre Star slowly disassembling, scribbled in black ink, 

Kyoka stood up from her desk, she went to the door, but she hesitated, why would she hesitate now? Fearing that it would be a repeat of the nightmare before? Her hand is hovering over the knob, hoping for someone to open the door for her. She has no other choice but to open and hope she's awake. 

She's been proven wrong yet again. 

The same damn long hallway was pitch black and the door to the office closed shut. Kyoka tried to open it but it was locked. “Come! No! Please! I’m sorry… I’m sorry I failed all of you. Just let this end….” She cried out, trying to yank the door open.

Her tears felt unusually thick. He placed a hand up to her eye and her tears….

Were ink….

She looked back down the pitch-black hallway and she began walking down it, a small light illuminated from her so she could see a little bit in front of her. She didn’t know how long it was, she just kept going, hearing the soles of her feet hit the ground slowly. She was silently sobbing as inky tears fell down her face. 

The images began to flash in her mind, making static sounds. Words were flashed saying. 

**“KEEP GOING.”**

**“DON’T LOOK BACK.”**

Then a creature with a single red eye appearing after those words were said in her mind. a singular laugh was heard and red lights turned on down the hallway, showing the door at the end of it. “W-What the f-fuck…” She muttered to herself, standing still a bit before continuing like she was told.

The door grew closer and closer, Kyoka never looking behind her. She couldn’t even imagine what would happen if she did, silent sobbing as her ink tears began to splatter on the ground.

She reached the door with ink-stained eye bags. She reached out to the doorknob but stopped for a minute. She didn’t know why she stopped, she wanted to turn the knob, but she didn’t have control of her body.

She turned her head around to look behind her and she regained control and looked away. “I-Its ok, just turn the knob.” It was locked.

“No…. No! Don’t do this to me! Open!” She screamed out, yanking and twisting at the doorknob, but she pulled too hard as it detached. “Open! Please I beg you!” She began to hear the roaring footsteps down the hallway rapidly approaching her. It sounded like some sort of robot.

She whipped her head around to meet her attacker approaching her and blinding speeds. It had that same singular red eye and no arms, just legs. She screamed in fear as it rammed into her, but instead of an impact, it phased through her.

Kyoka began having epilepsy, violently shaking her arms and legs. She fell onto her knees and her arms were holding her up from the ground. 

She uncontrollably began to cry out a mass amount of inky tears. She couldn’t stop, her tears began to make a puddle of ink on the floor as her nose began to feel wet and her ears stung as Ink began pouring out of them too, some of the ink from her ears trailing down her ear jacks.

She felt an itch in her throat becoming and building up and she began throwing up ink from her mouth. She had no idea where all this ink was coming from… was all the liquid in her body being turned into ink and forced out her body?

She couldn’t stop, the puddle became larger and larger as her anal and vaginal holes also began to pour out ink. Her eyes and mouth became pitch black and she eventually threw up her heart and died.

Kyoka jumped out of her desk, waking up for the fourth time. “W-What the actual f-fuck!” She checks the time again. “F-Five o'clock in the morning..! Get me the fuck out! Please! I said I was sorry!” She yelled out, now on her knees and holding out her arms, begging to be let out of this path of nightmares.

Inky tears began hitting the ground. She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want to leave the office, she wanted to stay, she wanted to stay and wait for this to all be over. 

She put her head on the ground and closed her eyes shut as she sobbed, after about three minutes of weeping tears, she heard the same singular laugh she heard from the last nightmare.

She shot her head up and she wasn’t in the office, rather outside the office door, in the agency. “No! This isn’t fair! Why!” She screamed out, knowing the nightmare just forced her out of the office, her only haven.

The laugh happened again and the door to the office disappeared just before Kyoka could open the door. She placed her hand and head on the wall, now crying even more. This nightmare probably enjoyed watching her weep in torment, being that she could cry this many tears, to begin with.

Kyoka lifted her head off the wall and began walking to the living room. Fearing what was to come. After getting halfway there, something flashed in her mind again. 

**“YOU ARE NOT SAFE”**

**“COME BACK”**

After seeing the messages, a white light was seen and the tension in the room became blackish and began shaking a bit. “O-Ok, Back where? You took the fucking door!” Kyoka began to panic, what did it mean to come back? She began to go to every door, frantically trying to open each one, but they were locked. 

The room began shaking more as it grew blacker. Hearing a screech every now and then. Kyoka began to panic and breathe heavily, not being able to find where “back” was.

Soon, everything went black and her vision came back as soon as the black came. The floor was slightly flooded by ink, up to her ankles. “I-I can’t take this anymore…” She said to herself. 

She heard a blood-curdling screech from the other end of the hallway from where she was. She turned to the noise and saw a flashing light approaching her at human running speed. 

Kyoka screamed as she ran the opposite way, the creature was obviously faster than her due to the fact that it was probably used to running in ink. Kyoka was struggling. 

And to make matters worse, she slipped into the living room. The side of her head slashing in the shallow flooded ink, painting it black. She tried getting up, but she was grabbed by the neck and forced to look at her attacker. 

It was a flashing white light like a projector with a human body made of ink.

Kyoka grabbed the hand, trying to force the hand off of her with her left while hitting its shoulder with her right. She was kicking it in the groin multiple times. Yet, none of her attacks did anything. 

The creature then held her down with one arm and jabbed its arm into her stomach. She screamed in pain as it began to slowly pull out her reproductive organs. She kicked and screamed as she began to cough out ink and blood and ink tears were falling from her eyes.

It slowly started taking them out more and eventually ripped the organs from her body. Kyoka was choking on her breath and she couldn’t stand. She won’t die, her reproductive organs aren’t vital and the creature knew this. She was in too much pain to even move her legs. 

The creature knew that she couldn’t stand so it removed its hand from her neck and forced her mouth open. It held her organs over her mouth and she began shaking her head. Her mind was screaming.  _ ‘No… please don’t do this…. I can’t!’  _

The creature began crushing her reproductive organs and the blood from them, mixed with ink, began pouring into her mouth. She had no choice but to swallow, she didn’t want to, she was against it completely, but she couldn’t stop because of stupid fucking gravity.

Kyoka was now balling out tears as her organ blood mixed with ink began pouring into her mouth and she swallowed.

The creature threw the organs aside and it drove its left hand, into her throat, she then felt as if she couldn’t scream… she couldn’t sob or speak, the only thing that came out was a painful whisper as the creature ripped her vocal cords out of her neck and crushed them over her face, spilling blood and ink all over it.

It snaked its fingers into her throat again and it grabbed her spine and-

Kyoka woke up once more this time, she woke up in bed. She checked the time and it was 5:30 in the morning, it seemed to have jumped thirty minutes every time she woke up. Her hair looks shriveled up from the repetition of nightmares, plaguing every waking moment of her life. Breathing heavily as her chest heaving, feeling sluggish and a dry lump that caught in her throat. 

She wanted this hellish purgatory of nightmares to be over with. She had no idea how many of them she was going to go through, but regardless, she is not allowed to change the plot of each of these nightmares by just staying in her bedroom or at the office, the nightmare will just force her out by simply teleporting her out of the room with a singular laugh. 

No matter how hard she tries to resist, she couldn't fight with all her strength, as if it has total control over the nightmares. 

A heavy drop of ink-stained on her bedsheet, it came from the ceiling. Dread and panic overwhelmed her, thinking to herself  _ "Don't look up! Don't look up! DON'T LOOK UP!!!"  _

Kyoka’s curiosity has betrayed her as she gives a peek and sees the Ink Demon, hanging upside down with the blotchy stain from the ceiling appearing, dangling its body, twitching and swaying its body in all the wrong ways. It arched back as it let out a glass-shattering screech, right in front of her face, she howled in pain as she covered her ears and dropped out of her bed. 

Kyoka began to crawl her way out of there, her eardrums were ringing loudly. Suddenly, she couldn't hear herself breathing nor heard the demon making its way to her, thrashing everything in the room. She lost her hearing. Then, she was forcibly pulled back, scratching the floor in an attempt to hold onto something. 

It hanged her body up by holding her hands up together, it pinched her jack carefully before plucking them off of her ears, Kyouka couldn't hear herself screamed from the torture, as it did for the other jack. Her earlobes are now bleeding, then it rubs her left ear now, which is ripped off of her head - like a tag of one's clothing. She squirmed around, thrashing her legs, trying anything to fight back. 

When the demon threw her on the ground, it tore her feet off. She began to worm her way out of there and moving quickly, the demon stepped on her back and pulled her left arm back by the wrist and held her hand, and yanked it off. Her screams echoed through the room, screams that she couldn’t hear. She now realized what it was doing…

It was taking all her sense away.

Kyoka desperately wanted to get away, which is futile now as it tore the right arm off, leaving her a living stump, couldn't hear or feel all of her limbs, all she can feel is the scorching pain burning in her brain, the Ink demon kneel down to stare at her face, reached out to her left eye as it dug its fingers through the socket and tug the eyeball out. 

She started to thrash her body  _ hard _ , attempted to move away as it reached her other eye, and yank it right off, she couldn't see as she felt her tongue was touched by a bitter flavor - ink. It ripped her tongue off, now choking and drowning in her own blood. Now, she felt her head being crushed. 

Kyoka woke up in her bed, looked up to see nothing there, breathing ever so much more than before, her irises were in a turbulent stare, feeling herself smaller with every waking nightmare. She thought to herself: when will this be over with? 

Her eyes looked over at the window to her room. She began to wonder; if she couldn’t stay in her room…

Kyoka got out of her bed and went to the opposite side of the window.

Then why doesn’t she take her own life to save her from suffering in this nightmare?

She took a running start and jumped through the window, shattering the glass on her face as she plummeted to her death. 

**_Thud_ **

Kyoka landed on her neck first, and the rest of her body hit the ground. She was crying inky tears, not out of pain and not out of the fear of jumping from the penthouse all the way down 14 floors.

It was because it didn’t hurt… and she wasn’t dead. She began sobbing, knowing there was no escape from this terrible nightmare. The only thing that hurt, was the glass shards that had pierced her skin.

She heard large footsteps approaching, she had no will to run away. She just accepted whatever this nightmare was going to throw at her.

She glanced her eyes beside her after the large footsteps stopped right next to her. She saw the Ink Demon in a different, yet more bestial form, its legs were shorter, more like small, point stubs. Its arms are ripped in muscle and its hands are bigger than its head.

Kyoka looked at it, lifeless. “Please…. Just kill me already.” 

Of course, her request wasn’t granted. The Beast Demon grabbed her leg and snapped the bone like a twig. Kyoka yelled in pain as the demon began breaking her bones.

Eventually, Kyoka was left unable to move, ribs fractured, arms and legs broken, hands and feet, also fractured. But it left her alive. Why does this nightmare proceed to torment her? Over and over again… it's not fair.

A crowd of people gathered around her and the demon, they don't have any features nor specific details about them except for yellow, glowing eyes, although a voice uttered a phrase  _ "Who's laughing now, Jack?"  _ Staring among the crowd, her eyes fixated on one person Kyoka knew and unfortunately failed to save. "Pyre… Star?" All she can do is whimper at the ink people, bearing the face of her friend. 

"Oh dear, something happened?" 

"What's going on over there?" 

"Come on! We gotta see what's up!" 

"This many people, whoever the person is. Are they important?”

She perked up to hear familiar voices, The voices of her friends, her closest friends. She panicked, hoping to get them away from here. “Kamakiri? Min-. No… You guys have to get out of here! Go!” Ink tears were now falling down her eyes.

"Oh, God! Kyoka? What has happened to you?!" 

"Jirou? What happened here, who did this to you?" 

“Who the fuck dared to do this?! I’ll fucking kick their ass!”

"Kyoka! We're going to get you out of there and send you to the hospital" 

Unfortunately, none of them left as the crowd closed them off, shrinking the circle around them till it's a wall of ink, blocking their way. They're confronted by a Beast Demon, startled by its appearance and demeanor, Kamakiri and Tokoyami, didn't hesitate to jump in front of Kyoka, assuming it's after her. 

"Guys! Don't fight it! Please!" Kyoka cries out, desperately trying to look away, unfortunately, the Beast Demon went straight to Tokoyami, chomping his head off, shaking his body viciously with a sprinkle of blood, hitting both the students and Kyoka. She began to feel a sensation of light-headedness as the flashing images of Tokoyami invaded her mind, showing all the fun times they spent together, having fun, not giving a care in the world but to each other and the rest of the ground. 

The Beast Demon then slashed at Kamakiri, who then counteracted with his own blade sprouting from his wrist. Mina jumped up, using Momo as a lift, like playing leapfrog, and tried to throw acid at the beast. 

This only resulted in her getting back-handed by the creature so hard, her head flew off her body. 

“Please stop….” Kyoka begged.

It grabbed Kamakiri by the arm, despite him sprouting blades all over him, and grabbed him by the head. Beginning to slam his body into the ground making audible cracking and splattering sounds.

It then turned its attention to Momo who was absolutely stunned by the sheer brutality. She had made a cannon and loaded it beforehand, but the demon already went through most of her friends. She fired it and The Beast Demon caught it and threw it back at her. It hit her in the gut, exploding her body in half by the force of the cannonball. 

“Noooooooooo!!!!” Kyoka cried out, now sobbing. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn't do anything again! It was like reliving all of her encounters, she couldn't do a single thing to help them…. All of the memories about her friends, rushing in like a waterfall, matching the outpour of tears, they all died protecting her and now she's all alone. 

The Beast Demon spread all the ink on the ground, consuming all of the corpses of Kyoka’s friends, absorbing them into its body, it towers over her body, it began to regurgitate and Kyoka's eyes widened in utter despair, knowing what it might possibly do.

"No… NO! Don't do this to me, I don't want to suffer any longer! Just kill me, please!" 

Her plea of death was once again denied as The Beast Demon poured out of all the blood of her friends as it mixed in with the ink, spilling all the contents, especially with Tokoyami's feathers, Mina's horns, and shards of Kamakiri’s blades.

Kyoka breathes heavily as she lets out an outcry of misery and sorrow, the loss of her friends, powerless and useless to do anything to change, and all she does is jump out of the building, just to escape the world of nightmares. And now she's being painted on with the blood of her lost friends and the ink of the monster that killed them. 

The Beast Demon placed a hand at the back of her head and held her up. Its grip tightened and-

Kyoka woke up again in the office, now feeling more destroyed and distraught. Covering her eyes and screaming her lungs out, she couldn't stand it anymore. She didn't believe if she's awake or still in a nightmare, not that it really matters anymore. She looked over the doodle of Pyre Star - now replaced by the Ink Demon in its place, that confirms it. 

_ She's still in a fucking nightmare _

She slowly stood up from the desk, Hands placed on the desk, no longer having the strength or the will to move away, she glanced over the window, thinking she should try again? But it'll be a repeat of the previous one, or it would allow her to escape to begin with. 

That until a voice came from the computer, sounded like those  _ old _ pre-quirk PSA.  _ "We like to interrupt this program for a special announcement!"  _

The room went dark as the light came from the computer, static is all it shows, Kyoka decided to get this over it and see what it has in-store for her. She went to the source of the computer and a channel number appears, the static stopped as it shows something familiar: it's her, exactly where she's sitting on the desk as she panicked and ran, on the screen the Ink Demon came out of there and kills her the same way from her first nightmare. Lifting her up and suffocating her in ink while breaking her jaw, making her flinch at the reminder of her death. 

The channel changes again to #2, of her drinking a cup and spitting it out, running out of the agency, catching up to a train and got her killed by the Ink Demon again by sticking its thumbs into her eye sockets and slamming her around the train, finally throwing her out the window of it.

Kyoka couldn't take it as the screen just revealed her deaths as it changes to 3#, some kind of countdown, she tries to run, but her ankles were sinking and tripped back as her body sinking to the wall, but not completely engulfing her body like before, instead it prevents her from looking away, even closing her eyes won't do anything as her eyelids were forcibly pry open by the ink. Making her watch her onscreen body being consumed by the wall, breaking her bones. 

The channel changes again, the countdown slowly begins to glitch out, showing all the deaths: bleeding out from all the orifices of her body till she vomiting her heart out; a inky humanoid with a head for a projector, force-fed her crushed reproductive organs, blood mixed with it's ink, yanked her vocal cords out and her spine; the Ink Demon on the ceiling, tearing her body into pieces and lastly her friends being massacred by the Beast Demon and having her parts and blood dumped on her. 

She sobbed her eyes out, couldn't look away nor closed it, she's never given a choice in this matter. After the 7th death, a big number appears in shining red as the static fades away, it shows the number 8# and the screen turns off. 

The overwhelming feeling of dread and anticipation crashes her mind, waiting for the moment that kills her yet again. Kyoka kept turning around to see anything or anyone, fearing for her impending demise, her chest pounds so loudly. 

She didn’t know how long it’s been.. Minutes? Hours? The clock in the office wasn’t working right, it was just going at fast paced speeds. Everytime the small hand landed on six, it rewinded.

This went on forever, her still being attached to the wall until she heard the same singular laugh from before in some of her other deaths. The clock was going way faster than before and the long hand was going at haywire speeds.

Ink began to pour out of all the computers rapidly, hands coming out of the puddles. Bodies of misassembled beings came out of the ink and made their way to Kyoka. 

They began tearing at her. Tearing off hands, legs, any part of her body they could get their inky hands on. Kyoka was screaming in pain and agony as this was happening to her. She felt some of her organs spill out of her body and bones breaking.

Soon, the creatures went away, leaving Kyoka to endure the pain coursing through her body. She was taking small, slow breaths. She could barely breathe. A Lot of her organs were spilled outside her body. She didn’t know how she was alive.

She saw another, inky human stand over her, wearing a mask of the cartoon she saw on tv. It grabbed what organs were already spilling out and yanked them out of her body. She screamed in pain and that was the only thing she could do. 

The humanoid wielded an axe and positioned it to swing it down. He swung it down, but before then, he recited a quote. 

_ “Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, it’s time for sleep” _

Kyoka opened her eyes and…. She couldn’t move. Her eyes frantically looked around her to see that it was 5:58 in the morning. She looked above her and there was a robot with a fox head and a hook. It showed it’s metallic rib cage and began shaking violently as it’s eyes turned white to red. 

It screamed in her face with a glass shattering roar and crushed her head with it’s jaw.

Kyoka sprung out of her bed, heavily panting and soaked in cold sweat. Her clothes were heavy due to being soaked in her sweat. She had heavy eye bags and her eyes were bloodshot with a hint of red as the outline of her eyes.

Kyoka glanced at the time and it was 7am. She smiled, it wasn’t 6 thirty, she was safe, the sun was up and she was finally out of that hellish, seemingly never ending nightmare.

  
  



	6. "Blemish Report"

Edgeshot was on his desk, writing all night, all by himself as he gave Kyoka some rest and a deserved break from the investigation, filling out the paperwork, handing missions to the other sidekicks… arranging a funeral for Hino Dangan - formerly known as Pyre Star. He already informed the rest of the agency as well his family, and the responses were all the same.

_ Torn and heartbroken. _

He was such a reliable sidekick to the agency… and more than that, he was like the little brother, both in and out of the field, who just wanted to help. Even when he couldn't do much during times of trouble, regardless, he just wanted to be there to support everyone. 

Placing his hand on his forehead and his elbow resting on the desk, Edgeshot did his best to keep himself awake. Hehas a code of honor to himself as well being a pro…

That was what he was once thinking of himself, but this entire investigation had just torn a hole in his mind and body, and Kyoka was  _ worse _ off.

He couldn't forgive himself after what just transpired, but he had to keep this operation classified; if anyone else knew, more heroes  _ will _ be lost, rumors will spread like pandemic and the villains would take advantage of the increasing paranoia. Not to mention that he was deceived, lured and that beast took an opportunity to make sure that he got distracted enough. That  _ thing  _ is far too dangerous, more so than any villain he faced in his career. 

Especially when it has one goal in mind, and that's getting close to Kyoka… for whatever reason it wanted/needed to.

The public mustn't know about this either, lest Japanese thrown into a panic. Heroes would try to resolve the situation only to be taken into the puddle to God and that Demons know where. And the Villains will make sure of spreading the word around and further pushing the situation into a pandemonium. 

He rubbed his eyes and stood up from his seat before groaning, “I should probably go check on Earphone Jack.” 

He walked to his door and opened it to reveal Kyoka with a stack of papers. She handed them to him and she walked back to her office without uttering a word.

Edgeshot was shocked to find her filing a report of her own, but he quickly noticed that she hadn't been able to sleep properly. Her eyes have bags under them, hair being shriveled up and loose ends, drenching in her own sweat, and dry but fresh tears on her face, he has a mere glance and it appears that she's not feeling okay. She's  _ definitely  _ not feeling okay.

Not at all. 

He sighed, moving to his office again to let Kyoka have at least a few more hours to recollect herself. He grabbed the first paper on the top of the pile, and this time he noticed that there's a stapler on this one, implying that this is part 1 of the report. He checked the total, which is 8 of them, an 8 part report. 

“When did…. Did she go on a patrol last night?” He questioned himself, seeing the amount of pages on the report. 

He began to read the report, and it already began explaining how Kyoka started having some sort of vivid dream involving a smiling cartoon character on a tv that turns on itself. She can talk to it and it would respond by changing the screen to the character doing an action or an expression.

The report delved in further, stating the character was holding a sign that says "Wandering is a sin" _.  _ Edgeshot doesn't know what that means, neither did Kyoka. Then it started to reach out to her, till it came out of the screen, she even wrote the name of the character, she dubbed it as-

"The Ink Demon?" Edgeshot whispers quietly. 

He went through the details and each word made him feel anxious as Kyoka explained that she tried to run and escape, but the door was locked and she couldn't use her quirk to get it open. It appeared behind her, raising her off the floor as it held her by her mouth, and it killed her - forcing her into drinking ink, drowning to death with a tune of humming as the last thing she heard. 

He was so absorbed into the report even though a part of himself didn't believe what he was looking at. Kyoka experienced a nightmare, but that doesn't explain why she remembers every single detail as if it was fresh on her mind. 

Edgeshot put report 1# to the side and went through with report 2#. Hoping that it's something else than that, right? She has to be awake from that… right? 

He was wrong. So.  _ Very _ .  **Wrong** . 

The second report opens up to Kyoka waking up from that nightmare, feeling thirsty as she went through the kitchen to drink water… and he had to cover his mouth from reading what comes after that. She had drunk water, but the taste of ink was present. Afterwards, Kyoka explained that she felt the same pressure from the alleyway as the room turned blue, and the Ink Demon came out of the TV screen before she ran. 

Flipping over to behind the page; she ran to a train with no passengers on-board, the driver was absent as well. It ran by itself as she was walking through each train cart, and suddenly it detached the moment she left, at the last cart the Ink Demon appeared behind her again. This time, raised  _ massive _ alarms through his head as he read onwards. 

It all ended with her 2nd Death - in attempts to detached the cart that it was on, the Ink Demon reappears behind her, had its thumbs pressed onto her eyes, the humming appears again as she felt her body was tossed out of the train window. 

Edgeshot firmly pressed the paper with his own set of thumbs, he's shaking like a leaf, and couldn't believe that she woke up from one nightmare to another. His eyes widen at the horrific revelation: the stack of papers  _ all _ contained experiences of her nightmare and her eventual death in them. He felt like he's going to be sick from reading all of the detailed descriptions. He placed report 2# and moved onto 3#, shaken badly as he took a deep breath and read through it. 

In report 3#, he stood up from his desk, pacing back and forth. And in this nightmare, Kyoka could hear the sounds of the victims; their screams and their pleading cries, and how they taunted her with she couldn't save anyone whilst she was walking in a inky wooden hallway, whispering those exact words:

"Wandering is a Sin." 

His hands formed into a fist, crumpling the side of the paper when it read that she heard the voice of Pyre Star. 

He skimmed through more of the details, as each word sickened him before he put the report down. 

Her 3rd Death…

Inky arms grabbed her, dragging her into the wall and breaking  _ every _ bone within her body, all the way up until her jaw was dislocated, hanging on its  _ hinges _ . 

"Oh God..." He morbidly whispered with wide and shaky eyes from the graphic detail of her death, wondering how the hell did she exactly know how she died. He began to feel more concerned with Kyoka, and he's still on Report 3# for fuck sake! 

He slammed the report down along with the others, and he had to calm himself with the belief that each death will be even worse going forwards. And that was when his fear for her sanity and psychological damage from those nightmares was  _ beyond _ the peak. 

He looked at report 4#...

_ 'How did she not wake at this point?' _ He didn’t know. Has her survivor’s guilt grown so much that it's causing her to have… Lucid nightmares? He didn’t know if that was even possible. He began to put the pieces together about this “Ink Demon”.

What they saw the night when Edgeshot was lured away, reassembled a monstrous demon more than any other eldritch horror. And so this creature tormenting her in this nightmare must be this “Ink Demon”.

In her fourth: She was in a long, seemingly endless dark hallway. She walked down it and she had words flashing in her mind telling her to keep walking and don’t turn around. She heard a laugh l, and out of nowhere, red lights flashed on, leading to the door at the end. She tried to twist the knob open, but before that, she felt her head being forced to look behind her. When she tried opening the door, it was locked. 

Edgeshot felt a cold sensation, as well as the urge to gag rough when she described the ink dripping on every orifice on her body…

It was too much for his mind to comprehend the horrid torture that Kyoka went through. His heart jumped out of his chest when he glanced over her 4th death - puking her heart out from all of the ink, expelling out of her mouth. 

He threw the report onto the ground, feeling more disturbed and restless from those descriptive deaths that will be plaguing his mind for years to come. He could hardly handle how it was being describe in text, and now he was thinking

to file for one of the best damn psychiatrist after all of this is over, better yet, put the investigation under hiatus. 

The amount of psychological trauma Kyoka has been through from this..... it was heartbreaking. And she is only 17!

“What…. What the hell….?” Was the only thing he was able to spit out his mouth as he continued to read. 

He was now reading report #5, and her handwriting was getting a bit sloppy, undoubtedly from the stress she was under. Some words were being misspelt, as if she didn’t think, she just wrote it down mindlessly. And the pages used a lot of lead, so much that it nearly broke through the paper.. 

It's a rough illustration of an ink creature, with a projector on its head. It's label: "The Projectionist". He'd be absorbed by the description of Kyoka’s encounter with this _ terror _ . 

And there it hits him, reeling his head away in fright, removing his mask and covering his mouth, mortified by it's revolting descriptions of her 5th death - it force-fed her crushed reproductive organs along with it's ink, like some kind of fruit smoothie, and ripped off of her vocal cords, which Edgeshot grasp his own neck, caressing it as the report finished off by having it pulled her spine out… 

"For fuck sake...!" He quietly shouted as he paced around the office, placed his hands on his eyes, exasperated by the degree of nightmarish torture she has to go through is undeniably cruel and heartless. There's no way in his life that there couldn't be anything worse than what he just saw.

He was considering to stop reading right then and there and go hire a psychiatrist. He has to keep Kyoka here, if she were to leave, Edgeshot’s best bet is that it would follow her. He needs to find a way to relieve her of her guilt and stop these nightmares.

But, how? At this point, he's stuck in a situation where he's no use but elevates everything else. 

He slowly lifted up report #6 which Kyoka described herself being a play toy to the Ink Demon. It appeared on the ceiling over her bed, and it unleashed a glass shattering scream which after, made her deaf. Edgeshot squeezed the paper after he read that it began tearing out her earjacks. 

He didn’t know if he should continue reading it, of course after reading the fifth one, he wanted to throw up. He set down the sixth one and sighed, he pinched the top of his nose in frustration. What was the worst  _ possible _ horrible thing that she could experience in next report?! 

He wished that he would stop expecting what's worse than that, the reports are getting to him, losing his calm state of mind to utterly repulsed and agonized by it. 

He noticed a single paper, which are all written by the phrase "Wandering is a Sin" repeatedly, over and over again, her handwriting degraded into gibberish and illegible words. 

He regretted ever bringing Kyoka into this investigation, even if she was his number 1 sidekick, she was still seventeen years old and still a student. 

He put his mask back on and walked out of his office and into Kyoka’s. She was on the computers and she looked way worse from when he first caught a glance at her. She had obviously showered sometime earlier as he was reading because her clothes were changed into something more comfortable. She had a red tint outlining her eyes and some of her veins in them can easily be seen

Kyoka stood there motionless, she couldn't speak up nor aware that Edgeshot was in the room, he walked beside her, giving her a gentle hug, a pat on the shoulder and back, whispering softly-

"It's okay..." 

And just like that the floodgates of tears in her eyes as she cried her heart out, listening to Edgeshot’s voice, those repeating words, brings comfort, knowing that she's awake, and that all it matters. 


	7. "Last Straw"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You will hate us for this
> 
> *Inhales*
> 
> Water is indeed not wet

After a long period of therapeutic crying and a comfort hug from Edgeshot, Kyoka  _ really  _ needs it, especially after she has gone through the nightmares and her increasingly gruesome deaths. 

"On the scale of 1 to 10, how badly do I really need help?" Kyoka asked, curious while joking around to ease the tension that the Edgeshot's expression exhibits, and to know exactly how he thinks about her current state of sanity. 

Edgeshot blankly stares at her, as if he's probably done with everything. He took a deep breath while holding her shoulders, "Pardon my use of language… but that's one of the most fucked up, gruesome, abhorred and nightmarish report I ever had to sit through, it bad enough that I only stopped at the 6# and Kyoka, you really deserve a least a month break… along with a therapy session." He used her real first 

“Is it… really that bad?” Kyoka responded with a stunned look. 

"Did I stutter?" Edgeshot asked. 

“But, what about….”

“Leave it to me, okay?”

Kyoka looked at him with a look of horror. Her third death was remenscent in her mind. The people she failed to save, they never saw the light of day, they were trapped with nowhere to go. She began to hallucinate and the wall behind Edgeshot read out….

“Dreams come true….. Please, I can’t lose you too.” She begged. Her quirk had no effect on the demon. What if it was the same for  _ all _ quirks?

Edgeshot looked at her with concern and alarm, he observed the direction she's looking at, he turned around to see… nothing? Nothing on the wall and yet, she looked like she could die within a moment's notice. So why is she reacting differently from before? 

Kyoka began to breathe erratically and shake badly. Edgeshot fears the worst, she's having an episodic breakdown.

Kyoka has a lot of things that preoccupied her mind:  _ how truly broken am I? Did I break down so much and that easily? Why am I like this? I can't I just calm down? Am I really going to be a burden to others now? Why was I left alive? Am I better off dead? Why can’t I just calm myself?! _

Kyoka hugged the pro closely, deathly afraid that he might fade away, dreading that she might be left alone to die. She doesn't even know what to do with herself now. She didn't even notice that Edgeshot might be suffocated by her tight embrace. 

Speaking of, Edgeshot didn't want to pull away as she's desperate for reassurance and she's assuming that he'll leave her alone. He pats her back softly, doing the same thing a few minutes ago. 

Despite the way Kyoka is acting right now, the duty of a pro has to come first. He can’t put the investigation on a hiatus for a month?! The amount of people that can be taken in that time is…. Terrible considering how easily The Demon can do it. But Kyoka is much of a victim in this mess, a surviving victim, but a victim nonetheless. 

Edgeshot can only do but sigh, he's stuck between on a hard place, but no matter what, he'll resolve both issues at some point. He just needs the right execution to do so. Rubbing Kyoka’s back as she is now calmed down. 

"But I'm serious about getting you a psychiatrist, and you can stay here as long as you feel like it, I'll file in the paperwork while you can sleep when you feel like it, okay?" Edgeshot said, reassuring that he won't go anywhere and providing her some help. Even though he doesn't have the will to say 'calm down and get some sleep’, because the idea of in itself is a little bit too much. 

“Okay…” Was the only thing that Kyoka could mutter out. She was too scared to sleep though, she was too scared she was going to relive everything she went through that night. Edgeshot stood up and walked to his office to make the call.

The atmosphere of being awake, and yet the fear of sleeping straight to a nightmare, brings more dread than she realized. Kyoka decided to play some music to preoccupy her thoughts a bit, loud enough to drown the imaginary noises, played back from those night terrors, good thing that she brought her headphones to listen to music. 

It was going great, until a roar from that robot that woke her up after her nightmares, it came back as Kyoka heard it coming from her left, jumped and about to scream, she instinctively covered her mouth to not make any noise. She glanced over to the vibration of her phone. The roar she just listened to, was just her phone? Who could've called her around this time?

Kyoka checked her phone, and groaned, it's Kaminari, one of her classmates, the one who acts cool when he's just an idiot. She accepted the call and wanted this to be over with. 

_ "Hey, how are you today?" _ Kaminari said, on his end of the call. In the background, there were people being heard complaining how Kamakiri was so good at smash brothers, Bakugo can be heard yelling at Kirishima, but that was inaudible. Of course, they were having fun at the dorms.

“What do you want, Kaminari?” She said, tiredly yet stern, being obvious she isn’t in the right mood. She isn’t in the right state of mind either.

_ “Come on, Jiro. Lets hang out sometime, you know the usual.”  _ Kaminari said, not getting the hint that Kyoka was off her usual mood. She can’t put up . with him

So, just like that, Kyoka hung up, unfortunately, Kaminari is a tenacious guy. So, of course, he called back.

“ _ Hello? So, are we going to hang out or……” _

"Not in the mood to do anything," Kyoka said, slowly exasperated by the minute, her patiences is growing thin with him.

_ "C'mon Jiro, it's better when you're with me, instead of your agency."  _ Kaminari groaned on the end of his call. 

She hung a phone to the whining little child, what right does he have to whine? Kyoka is literally becoming fucking insane at this point! Doesn’t he know when to quit?! 

He called again, Kyoka’s irises began to shake as quick snarls and growls came and went in her mind a few times. She was losing it. .

She picked up the phone again. “What?”

_ “I think the connection is bad. Anyways, why don’t you just ditch Pyroar or whatever his name is, if you're on patrol with him.” _

The snarls and growls that came and went became louder and she heard something press up against the window in the living room. Tears began to fall down her eyes, hearing him mock her dead teammate's name. Yet, she was still giving him a chance… 

“B-Bye, don’t c-call me again.” She hung up… and despite her request.

He called again.

The.

Last.

Fucking.

Straw.

She picked up the phone and before he could say anything. “Look you retarded shit head! I’m not intrested in your stupid ass and Im not in the mood for any of your bullshit! Go fuck yourself you insensible piece of shit!” She hung up the phone and blocked him. Not just on the messaging app, but everywhere. Hell, even on herotube!

Kyoka slammed her phone on the table and began crying again. She glazed over at the window and a robotic bear looking thing that looked withered and ignited was looking at her through the window from outside.

She began to hear a rough knock at the closed door behind her. Everything started shaking, There was Ink pouring over the ceiling in front of her and everything was going grey. Her breathing was erratic as she began to hear growling….

Right behind her. She stood up and looked behind her to see a yellow chicken robot who looked withered and ignited but way more broken than the bear. It screeched giving her the scare of her life as everything went white.

She was now sitting on the floor, holding her head as her blurry vision came back and everything went back to normal colors, along with the shaking. She looked at the window and the bear was gone. The Ink wasn’t dripping either.

“I-I need some f-fucking sleep….But….” she began to cry not knowing what to do.  _ “I’m too scared… I… I can’t.” _

Kyoka heard her phone vibrating again on the table. ‘It’s probably Kaminari again.’ She thought to herself as she stood up and walked back to the desk. She held her phone up and saw what she was not expecting. It was the group chat of her friends. They…. Called her?

Kyoka put her headphones back on and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

_ “Hi Kyoka! How are you doing?” _ Mina called out through her end of the phone as Kyoka walked to her room.

_ “You holding up good, Jiro?” _ Tokoyami ever so calmly asked Kyoka as she had entered her room.

_ “How’s the investigation going with Edgeshot? I bet you kick a lot of ass!”  _ Kamakiri said energetically, as Kyoka threw herself on her bed. She began slowly tearing up.

_ “You fine over there, Kyoka?”  _ Momo questioned worryingly, hearing Kyoka’s small and quiet sobs.

“ _ I….I’m fine…”  _ Kyoka croaked a bit, she was relieved that her friends called her to see how she was doing. She thought she was going to lose it. How is she going to tell them about the whole thing, fearing as her nightmares on the 7th might come true? She doesn't like to lie to her friends who are concerned for her well-being. 

_ "Are you sure? You don't sound fine."  _ Momo gently responded, feeling a bit worried of Kyoka's forlornness. 

_ “I…..I’m just going... through a lot of things right now…”  _ Kyoka wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell them that Pyre Star was gone. She didn’t want to drag them into the problem, she didn’t want her nightmare to come true. 

_ "Okay, but if you need anything, we're here for you, Kyoka."  _ Momo said, reassuring Kyoka that her friends will always be here for her . Kyoka felt like she was about to break down.

_ “C….Can you guys stay on?…. At least until I fall asleep? I-Its just that I have been having trouble sleeping.”  _ Kyoka questioned, not wanting her friends to leave her to dread being alone on her bed.

_ “Yes.” _

_ “Of course, Kyoka.” _

_ “Sure!” _

_ “Got nothing better to do.”  _

That last comment left by Kamakiri meant a lot considering he has almost five shelves full of different games for different consoles. 

Her friends were all understanding people, even Mina is. She isn’t an idiot like Kaminari is, she just doesn’t study. She is actually pretty smart and can read the room.

Kyoka had wiped the tears from her eyes, trying to get her composure back. “Thanks… this means a lot. So, what have y-you guys been up to?”

_ “The usual for me, though me and the rest of the girls went to the mall.”  _ Momo stated.

_ “Oh yea! That was so fun!” _

_ “I went to the Underground hero HQ recently with Erasure.”  _ Kamakiri stated and Kyoka raised a brow.

“When did…” 

_ “About… the day after you left for Edgeshot’s” _

_ “ _ Oh.”

They talked for a while without talking about experiences with Kyoka’s agency recently. Kyoka had gotten under the covers as they were talking already. Kyoka’s eyes were feeling heavy with an audible yawn escaping from her lips. As she passed out sleeping on the bed, the call went on.

_ “Kyoka? You there?”  _ Momo called out through her end of the phone.

_ “I think…. She fell asleep.”  _ Mina responded to Momo for Kyoka.

_ “Well shut up so we can make sure she did.”  _

All they heard was a slow breathing, and a little random sound. Totally out of it, in a calm tone. They all sighed in relief, knowing they were a big help to Kyoka for her to get some sleep. They all hung up the phone to let her sleep without interruption. 

A couple of hours that passed by, Kyoka suddenly woke up, but for some reason, she's unable to move, even using her quirk, just motionless as her eyes are the only thing that's capable of motion. She frantically glanced around to see what's going on. 

It was calm. Dead calm, she glanced at her clock, it was switching numbers every millisecond, she couldn’t even make out what order it was going in.

She then heard a heavy tap on the window. She glanced over to it and there was a brown arm with no hand. The arm did not look human or animal at all.

She then heard a single knock on from the opposite side of the door to her room. Kyoka’s breathing became slightly erratic. She didn’t know what was happening, she was helpless, unable to run or scream. She can only see and breath, nothing else.

She heard her closet creak a bit and she couldn’t help but glance over. There was nothing but a dim, white light.

She heard the tap again and shot her eyes over and went wide-eyed. It was the withered bear looking thing from earlier. Looking in her window. It was glancing around, as if it was searching for something. It then fell off the window and an audible low toned roar signified that it fell.

The closet swung open to reveal the yellow, armless chicken from earlier which only had the upper arms connected. Her door got knocked on again, this time it was twice and it was a little more violent. Was it eventually going to kick down the door? She didn’t know, but she really hoped it didn't. She would rather it not come out here.

The chicken then appeared right at her bed and screamed at her and vanished. She began breath way more erratically as her vision became disoriented. She began frantically looking around her room and the closet was still wide open. 

The door knocked a third time. It knocked three times a bit more violently and the door was forced open. It was a severely damaged robotic rabbit that looked ignited…. Like the rest of them. It had no face, just a bottom jaw and its flat robotic face can be seen with wiring over it and glowing red eyes. 

It had one arm with only the metallic skeleton, nothing over it and the other arm was just gone, nothing out long wires coming out of the metal skeleton. She was so focused on it, she didn’t even hear a scrape at the side of her bed.

It then shut the door violently and everything went quiet again and just as Kyoka was beginning to calm down, the fox stood over her sleep paralyzed body and looked down at her right in the eyes.

Kyoka began hyperventilating, remembering the fox robot as tears began filling her eyes. The robot’s eyes began to change from white to red and started shaking.

It screamed at her and she woke up, taking a long deep breath. Everything was disoriented. She held her hands on her head, she was scared. She glanced at the clock, it was 3pm in the afternoon. 

She glanced around the room and sprang out of bed. She locked her door, then she put the window covers over the window, she tied the knobs to open the closet together and finally she grabbed her blanket and wrapped it around her and sat on the floor. 

Her eyes were wide and still slightly bloodshot, but her veins were more visible and a darker shade of red as an outline. Her eye bags were almost black and deep. Her breathing was erratic and her chest was pounding.

That was the last straw…. The last short straw of her sanity….. And it just snapped into pieces.

She looked at her nightstand. She slowly, shakingly stood up and walked to it with the blanket still around her. She opened the drawer and took out one of her new sketchbooks, one that she never opened. She usually filled her previous sketch books before starting a new one. 

She grabbed her headphones, she didn’t want to use her quirk, actually she couldn’t feel her jacks from how stiff they were. She sat back down on the floor and put her headphones on. She heard loud knocking the minute she put them on and she jumped. ‘Don’t come in, Don’t come in, DON’T COME IN!’ Her mind began to shout.

“Earphone Jack?” 

She then calmed, hearing Edgeshot’s voice. She placed her hand on her forehead and she unlocked the door and opened it. 

Edgeshot looked at her and she was even worse. She looked insane, and not in the good way either. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Your psychiatrist is going to be coming five times a week, okay? And she will be starting tomorrow.” Edgeshot informed and Kyoka only just nodded in response.

* * *

The next day, Kyoka didn’t get any sleep, she stayed up the whole night. She was hearing the growls at the window, the thuds on her door and the growls from her closet. Every Time she heard those noises, she tallied it under the names she put down for them.

She didn’t even know why she named them. Or… what she named them, she just wrote. Probably to help her stay awake. Bonnie, was what she named the severely broken rabbit. Chica is the chicken in her closet and Freddy was the one at her window. Finally, Foxy was the monster under her bed.

Bonnie

II\II II

Chica

IIII

Freddy

II\II I

Foxy

  
  


Those were the tallies she wrote down, in one night. In one night she had experienced that many delusions and hallucinations. Though, Foxy didn’t give her any problems. He never showed up for her. And even weirder...

The Ink Demon wasn’t around either, it was very odd. 

While she was not only keeping herself busy by tallying the amount of hallucinations and delusions she had. She drew very vivid sketches of the four, they weren’t colored and they won’t be. She just drew them and used lead for the details and any ink she had in her art kit, went out the window.

She had just gone through her therapy session for the day and not that it helped much. She began to think she was unfixable, she was broken and can’t be repaired.

Beforehand though, Edgeshot went into her room as she was taking her session. Her bed looked as if it wasn’t slept in for days. And her blanket was on the floor set as a circle, as if she had been sitting on the floor with the blanket wrapped around her the whole time.

He sighed in a sad tone. He closed the door, leaving it to her. He only hopes that she will get better in the future. 

One can only hope...

**Author's Note:**

> Come join the cult we are all a part of  
> https://discord.gg/wXQvzm2


End file.
